Volcatia gathered her thoughts.

She was probably going to fuck this up, so it would be good to have an easy starting point.

Still standing on the main floor, she started up the stairs, making the effort to produce extra noise with her footsteps.

Like a human would.

She reached the second floor.

Mina huddled in her chair, her arms wrapped around her legs. "So, you've come to take me at last," she said, her eyes turning down to look at her knees.

"No, I haven't," Volcatia said. "If—"

"JUST TAKE ME TO HER ALREADY!" Mina screamed, pressing her face to her knees as she began to cry. "I can't bear this tension any longer," she sobbed.

Volcatia stopped watching.

Okay.

That didn't go well.

But she never lost.

Not when she wasn't trying to lose, anyway.

Sateus and victory could fuck themselves, but she still wouldn't lose.

She stomped up the stairs again while standing in place.

"So, you've come to take me at last," Mina said again for the first time.

"Are you gonna give me a chance to talk?" Volcatia asked.

"What's to speak about?" Mina said. She sniffled. "You've been paid, and you're completing a task." She let out a soft whine. "Go on, what are you hesitating for?" She started to cry again.

Volcatia stopped watching.

She told Carl she wasn't going to say anything to upset the girl, and that would have to include letting her upset herself, she figured.

This wasn't the first time she'd done something like this.

Sometimes it took many, many tries.

If she was smarter, maybe it wouldn't take as many.

She wasn't though, so she continued along as best she could.

Once more she climbed the stairs while not climbing the stairs.

"So, you've come to take me at last," Mina said yet again for the first time.

Volcatia studied her.

The girl looked sad.

Maybe even miserable.

She'd been fun to talk to on the previous occasion when the topic had been cars, driving, and racing, but it was hard to say anything now that didn't bring her to tears.

It was the same as the night before.

Volcatia rubbed her forehead.

Fucking Carl. Why couldn't he have easier problems?

She had another idea.

Fuck. Obviously!

It was so hard not being smarter.

She did the best she could, but she was really feeling her limits now.

People were always the hardest problems for her to solve.

"I'll be back," she said, not expecting it to matter.

Volcatia pulled her pannus back over her face and moved to a spot just outside a shop she'd liked at one point before it got weird. She opened the door and walked in.

"Hello!" called the annoying man she'd encountered a few days earlier. The other two women, including the older one who seemed to have recognized her, were nowhere to be seen.

"I want—"

"I'll be with you in a minute," he said, not paying attention to her as he continued taking pastries out for an old woman in a purple robe who wanted to look more closely at each one.

It was fine.

This was completely fine.

Waiting was a normal thing that humans did.

She waited like a normal human.

Tapping her foot.

Crossing her arms and tapping her fingers.

But that was all she did.

Yeah, she really was great at being human.

At last, years later, the old woman was finished deciding which pastries she wanted and slowly fumbled through her coin pouch to find the right coin to exchange for the small plate of her purchases.

Volcatia continued to wait patiently.

It was painful though.

"Thank you so much, Verecundus," said the old woman as she picked up her pastries.

"It was my pleasure," said the man.

Volcatia breathed.

"Now then, can I help you?" he asked, looking at the foot tapping, finger tapping, breathing human.

The old woman gave her a smile as she walked past and out the door.

"I want a cup of tea," Volcatia said.

"What kind of tea would you like?" the man asked. "We have—"

"Whatever the most expensive kind is," she interrupted.

She'd never enjoyed tea.

Tea was a drink for socializing.

It was for drinking with others who were also drinking tea.

Coffee was a drink that a person either needed or didn't.

If they needed it, they drank it—though maybe not as fast as Carl seemed to be able to—and if they didn't, they could fuck right off as far as she was concerned.

Volcatia still needed coffee.

She didn't need it in the same way that she used to, but she still needed it.

It was one of the things that kept her human.

"Needs milk and sugar too," she remembered.

"Okay, just give me a minute…" The man took out a saucer and teacup, following which he poured in water from a kettle off a nearby stove top. Next, he reached under the counter and pulled out a block of tea, which he used a file on to slowly fucking scrape little pieces of fucking tea into the cup.

But Volcatia was completely fine, even though she was beginning to feel impatient.

She wasn't good at waiting for things when she was looking forward to a certain point in time.

The rest of the day was going to be torture.

The man finished stirring the tea and poured in an amount of milk.

Who the fuck added extra shit to their drinks? If the drink didn't taste good, maybe the person should drink something else.

Volcatia took a breath.

It wasn't that annoying.

It was fine.

The annoyingly slow man added a carefully measured amount of sugar that definitely didn't fucking need to be measured that…

She clenched her jaw to stop herself from telling him to hurry the fuck up.

"Will that be all, Miss?" the man asked as he set the saucer and cup on top of the counter.

"Yeah, thanks," she said like a human would, setting a ten-mark down softly on the countertop next to the saucer with one hand and lifting the teacup and dish with the other.

She'd always vaguely wondered how the city's reuse workers worked, and the question came back to her again now.

There were places in the city to take all the cups and plates and utensils that were bought alongside meals and drinks, but what happened to them after?

The thought distracted her from punching the man for smiling at her after how fucking long he'd taken to make a single fucking cup of tea.

She turned around and pushed through the door, moving back to the second level of the workshop at the same time.

It was a trick she'd come up with years earlier and turned into a habit.

People had weird reactions when she moved like that while they watched, but if she did it while passing through an opened door, it was somehow okay.

Weird.

"I got tea for you," Volcatia announced while holding out the tea. "Can we talk now?"

Obviously the missing part to being able to talk had been tea.

The girl was drinking tea the last time they'd talked, and she'd been fine.

She was sad when her car exploded, yeah, but she didn't have tea to drink any of the other times Volcatia had tried to talk to her.

Volcatia had known other people just like this girl who wouldn't talk without tea.

She imagined a smarter person would have noticed much faster.

Mina trembled. "If… If you're capable of such things, why resort to this? Why…" She sniffled, and a tear rolled down her cheek. "Why poison me?" she whispered.

Volcatia tossed the teacup and saucer back over her shoulder and rubbed her forehead. "You're really fucking annoying, you know that?" she grumbled.

The girl flinched back with a yelp as the dishes shattered.

"If I brought tea for both of us would that be better?"

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The girl curled up tighter when Volcatia approached and began to say "I'm sorry, Emma" repeatedly in the Char language.

Volcatia stopped watching.

This was excruciating.

Fucking Carl.

She tapped her foot on the main floor of the workshop while remaining perfectly still.

So it wasn't tea.

That was fine.

The tea did seem to help a little though.

The girl didn't start screaming or crying immediately that time.

She was again tempted to find the wife of Marcus Camelius Belenus and beat the answer out of her.

Or tear it out.

Whichever seemed fastest.

With some reluctance, she again chose not to act on that thought.

It wasn't time yet.

That left her without any great ideas on how to try her plan.

Talking alone seemed not to work.

The girl was too afraid.

If only she hadn't told Carl she wouldn't say anything to upset her.

It was a nice feeling to be trusted, and this seemed to be something he cared about more than anything else.

Volcatia stopped watching.

She decided to try two cups of tea.

After checking to make sure the pannus was secured around her face, she moved back to the same shop and entered.

"I think I'd like to see some of them a little closer," said the slow old woman. "My sight isn't what it used to be."

"Of course," said the annoying man. "Welcome, I'll be with you shortly," he added without so much as glancing away from the slowest old woman in existence.

Fuck.

She had a bad starting point for this.

That was fine though.

It was fine.

Completely fine.

Volcatia breathed.

She was just excited because she knew how fun things were going to be later on in the day, and she wanted to get to that then faster.

That was all it was.

"Ooh, this one has a pretty color," the old woman said as she peered down at some fucking piece of bread on a plate.

It was a very human thing to get annoyed like this, and Volcatia was okay with it.

She was great at being human.

Very human.

She didn't tap her foot, she didn't tap her fingers on her arm, and she didn't even show any outward sign that she was annoyed.

She was that good at being human.

She wasn't even that fucking annoyed when the old woman asked to see a sixth piece of bread and squinted down at it for a few decades before deciding to buy it.

Not Volcatia.

She was completely distracting herself by thinking about how great that night was going to be.

"Can I help you, Miss?" the slowest fucking man in the world asked.

"Two cups of your expensive tea, one with milk and sugar."

"Ah, you want Chamaemelum Nobile," said the man. "Just a minute."

Yeah, that was what she wanted.

The man took centuries to again retrieve a pair of cups and saucers, pour hot water with an annoying flourish, shave off some tea into the water, stir, then add milk and sugar to one cup and stir both of them again.

She slapped down a pair of ten-marks from her pocket onto the counter, grabbed both saucers, and left through the door, moving to the second level of the workshop at the same time.

"Hey, I brou—"

Mina shrieked and rolled out of her chair to cower behind it.

"HEY, I BROUGHT YOU TEA!" Volcatia not-shouted, not at all annoyed by the response she was getting for all the effort she was putting in.

"G-go away!" Mina called, starting to sob again.

What the fuck did she do now?

Volcatia marched over to the chair and leaned around it. "Okay, what the fuck is it now?" she demanded.

Mina shrieked again and tucked herself farther into the corner between the wall and chair. "Y-you simply appeared, and—"

Volcatia stopped watching.

How could one girl be so fucking annoying?

Okay, okay, maybe it wasn't entirely her fault.

Volcatia had forgotten that humans didn't move between places like that.

In fact, she'd done it almost every time, now that she thought about it.

That had to be what she was doing wrong.

She moved back to the shop to buy tea.

"—some of them a little closer," the old woman was saying. "My sight isn't what it used to be."

"Of course. Welcome, I'll be with you shortly."

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

She should have really gotten the tea first.

"Ooh, this one has a pretty color."

If Volcatia was smarter, maybe she'd put her abilities to better use.

She'd already done that though.

Compared to what she'd already done, this was easy.

She didn't die when she fucked this up.

There were times when she missed those days, brief though they'd been.

Times when she'd been the champion of one deity joined with the champions of other deities fighting in defense of the world.

Or just fighting on her own.

But that was boring.

Tough, but boring.

It hadn't been at the time, but that was far in the past.

Decades ago.

Now she was a normal human trying to buy some fucking tea.

"Miss?"

Volcatia came back to herself at that time while continuing to stand in the workshop. "Yeah. Two cups of Chamaemelum Nobile, one with milk and sugar."

"I'll have them ready shortly," said the man.

She waited.

Waiting was always the worst part.

Sleeping was almost as bad.

It was so hard to fall asleep for the tenth or twentieth time on the same night.

She grabbed both saucers while she slapped coins down on the counter, forgetting to use her hand to grab one of the small dishes and instead attaching it onto the other one because it was easier.

She realized she wasn't being human as she was about to push open the door with her shoulder and corrected her mistake after moving back to the main floor of the workshop.

It wasn't important.

This time she had it.

She could feel her success.

Volcatia stomped up the stairs, taking care not to spill any of her hard-won tea.

She was feeling very human right now at this then.

"Hey, Mina," she called out before she reached the top this time. "It's me. Thought we could talk a little? I brought tea."

She reached the second floor, and the girl didn't scream, cry, or sob.

Obviously.

She'd done everything perfectly this time.

Mina huddled in her chair with her arms around her legs staring suspiciously.

Volcatia knew how to deal with this too.

"Good tea," she said, taking a sip from one cup, then the other.

She remembered to fumble a little with each one as she set the saucer down on top of the other cup too, just like a human would.

And she didn't grimace when she tasted how unnaturally sweet the second cup of tea was either.

She had considerable practice acting in certain ways.

Her every motion, expression, and even the tone of her voice was easy to affect for shorter periods of time like this.

She avoided watching for too long anymore.

She was just too fucking tired.

"Why have you come?" Mina asked, still looking at her with suspicion.

Volcatia passed her the more disgusting of the teacups and saucers.

The girl accepted it, but she didn't drink.

Volcatia took a sip of the awful tea.

It was what she had to do when talking to a tea-drinker.

"Carl said to try talking to you to cheer you up," she simplified.

"Has he now," Mina said slowly, taking up her spoon and swirling her tea. "He must have quite a lot of trust in you."

"Yeah," Volcatia said, feeling a small amount of satisfaction as she remembered his acknowledgment of his trust in her.

"Then surely he's shown you his preferred weapon for fighting," Mina said. She gave the much older woman an expectant look.

Carl fought? And with a weapon?

Volcatia tried to imagine it.

The man was a disaster if he had to fight anyone in Onyxfell. That much was plain for anyone to see. Ten million Strength, Agility, and Stamina would grant him easy wins over weaklings, but he had no other abilities from what she'd seen of his status. Yeah, he had a weird hidden Title that he probably didn't even know about, but it didn't give him any special skills or stats. He'd learned a little of basic punches and kicks, but she didn't imagine he'd be able to actually land an effective blow on a strong opponent.

He was weirdly hardy though.

He'd taken a hit from her, weak though it had been, and been completely unaffected.

That was very weird, now that she considered it more.

She'd imagined he would at least have been stunned for a few seconds, but he was completely fine, and with only ten million Stamina too.

She brought her thoughts back to the question.

What sort of weapon would someone like Carl use?

Volcatia's eyes were drawn back to the girl's pale, delicate fingers as they moved the spoon through the brown liquid.

They were trembling.

Fuck.

Volcatia wasn't specifically observant, but she always noticed details about objects in motion.

She felt her success slipping from her grasp.

No.

She had this.

She just had to get past this question, and then the girl would at least believe her enough that she could say a few fucking words without having her erupt into bawling again.

What sort of weapon would Carl use?

She had no fucking idea.

She thought about the question again.

Then she thought about who was asking it.

Mina was Smart.

She knew that.

Smart people loved to ask questions and talk about things that made them feel Smart.

In particular, they loved trick questions.

Volcatia felt a little smart at having figured it out.

Just a little.

She knew she wasn't even smart, let alone Smart, but at that moment she felt like maybe she could one day become smart.

Volcatia sipped her disgusting tea again. "Carl doesn't use any weapons," she said after she'd forced herself to swallow. "He fights with…"

Mina's hands shook more noticeably, and tea spilled out of the cup onto the saucer. Her eyes widened, her lips turned white from being pressed together, and she cringed back into her chair and whimpered.

Volcatia didn't care.

She'd seen plenty of people who were scared and many who were probably scared for better reasons than whatever this girl was afraid of with her sister.

She stopped watching.

She was Annoyed now.

More than Annoyed.

She was Frustrated.

When Volcatia was Frustrated, she made bad decisions.

She knew this, but it wasn't a problem that needed solving.

The only problem that needed solving right now was the one that Frustrated her.

She never lost.

Not when she didn't want to.

Not once.

Not since she'd been twelve.

She crackled.

Volcatia moved back to the shop and walked through the door without opening it. "Give me two cups of tea."

It wasn't a request.

"I'll be with you in a minute," said the man, not looking away from the old lady.

The interior of the shop flickered with bright blue light.

The surrounding space sparked randomly.

The man stared.

The old woman stared.

Volcatia reached through the glass case and retrieved one of her favorite biscuits. She took a bite, enjoying the same, familiar crunch.

The air grew thicker, crackling, and the sparks became more frequent.

"Tea," she repeated. "Now."

The man's mouth opened and closed, and his hands and arms started to wave in the air in front of him.

"Chamo-whatever. One cup with milk and sugar. One without."

The man sprang into action, dropping the plate he'd been showing onto the counter and scrabbling underneath for dishes. There was a smashing sound, and he came up a second later with two cups on saucers, his hands shaking.

The old woman fainted.

Volcatia took another bite of the biscuit in her hand.

Being human was too hard sometimes.

The man whose name didn't matter worked frantically to prepare the tea. He spilled water from the kettle onto the counter and then nearly lost hold of the block of tea he was holding.

"C-can I just say I've always b-been a great admirer of yours?" he stammered while he rapidly stirred the cups of tea.

"Thanks," said Volcatia.

It was the only thing she could say to stop people like this from talking forever.

She took another bite of the biscuit.

He stopped stirring and pushed the cups forward on the counter.

"Milk. Sugar."

"R-right! Sorry!" He lunged to the ice box and retrieved a glass bottle, fumbling it in his haste.

She should have made the tea herself.

The only reason she'd come here was to get a biscuit.

She could admit that to herself.

Being Frustrated didn't mean she couldn't think.

The man stirred again, slopping tea out of the cup and onto the saucer.

She didn't care.

She held her hand out and attached the first saucer to it, saving her the trouble of picking it up.

The man's stirring slowed.

She attached the second saucer to the first.

The saucers remained upright as she held the first one between her fingers, forming a short saucer-chain in the air.

She set her biscuit to levitating for a moment while she pulled a coin out of her pocket and attached it to the counter, then reclaimed the snack and moved back to the workshop's second floor, illuminating it with arcing blue light.

Volcatia attached the second saucer to the arm of Mina's chair, freeing it from her own saucer.

She didn't even know why she'd gotten herself a cup of tea this time.

She took her reclining chair out of her Inventory and sat on it without reclining.

The girl stared at her with wide eyes, too stunned to move.

"I'm Volcatia Scipio. I'm going to talk, and you're going to sit in your chair and listen."

She paused for a moment to make sure she'd been understood.

Mina's eyes widened even more, and her hands rose to the sides of her face, continuing up into her hair. "Of course," she whispered. "Vol. Volcatia."

Volcatia was definitely going to kill this girl.

She was just too annoying.